Sunny and I went to a potty training class because Ella hasn’t shown any interest in going on the potty and when we try to have her be without a diaper, she is resistant. Ella needs to be potty trained by September 2, her first day of pre-school. The woman gave us a lot of good information and instructions for when we decide to potty train. Our target date is this Friday so we had to have our family meeting. This family meeting is a part of the potty training process. Here is how it went. We all sat around the table and lit a candle. Ella was very excited about the candle and asked if she could blow it out. We told her that she could blow it out after the meeting. We started off by saying this (what the lady told us to say), “Ella, we are so sorry that we didn’t potty train you earlier. You were showing signs and we didn’t pick up on them. Mommy and I made a mistake and we need to help you use the potty now.” We then took out a pile of diapers and said (the lady told us to say this too), “Ella these are are the only diapers that we have left. When all of the diapers are gone, you are going to have to go on the potty. Do you understand that? This means that on Friday morning when you wake up, you will not have a diaper or pants. You can wear a sun dress or tank top or tutu, but you will not have a diaper.” Ella looked at us and said, “Then I will go on the potty”. We could have ended it at that, but we did one more thing that the lady told us to say. We told her that diapers cost money to buy and so do things that Ella likes to do like watercolors and we told her that we could only buy one of those things, not both. We asked her if she would rather have diapers or watercolors and she said, “Watercolors and then in a little while, you can buy me a computer.” We both had to stop ourselves from laughing. Anyway, it went pretty well. Ella did a great job listening and blew out the candle with great pride at the end. We told her that on Thursday night, she could take all of her potties and put them wherever she wanted them in the house. We will give potty updates daily.
Archive for July, 2008
Family Meeting
Wednesday, July 30th, 2008The Jewish Museum with mommy
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008This is mommy writing …
Today was a beautiful Monday, Ella and I went to the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Even before we walked in, it was a joy as Ella loved playing around the front of the building, showing proudly her jumping off short stairs, touching the stones in the shallow fountain or talking about the beautiful multi-colored flowers. When we walked in the museum, we were told we had to check our diaper bag, the women who took the bag, said to Ella, “what is your name beautiful girl”, Ella said her name clear and strong, Ella returned the question to the women, “my name is Mrs Rosen” and then she asked Ella if she knew what Shabbas was, I took it further and asked Ella if she remembered how we light the shabbas candles and without hesitation, Ella showed Mrs. Rosen waving her hands around and then placing them over her eyes–Mrs Rosen was in awe as we continue to be with this beautiful Ella! The rest of the museum visit went on like this with joy and amazement –Ella identifying menorahs, shabbas candles, dreidels-then at Ella’s request—“Let’s eat in the cafe, and take the bus and go home”–so that is what we did–Peanut butter and jelly and hummus–Monday Monday—YOU CAN TRUST THAT DAY!
Thank you mommy for the beautiful recollection of today.
Here is Ella in front of the museum. Check out her outfit!
Ella is so much more confident with jumping.
Enjoying a chocolate cream puff.
When I came home from work today, Ella told me all about her day and she told me that she really loved the purple chairs at the museum.
This is what I call a fantastic fake smile.
Looks like a great lunch!
Ella looks like such a big girl to me in this picture.
Ella must have been in heaven putting her hands in the water.
The Letter Factory
Monday, July 28th, 2008The other day I wrote about Ella watching Stella and Juliet’s blog and seeing Stella sing the final song from “The Letter Factory”. The day after she saw the video, we were hanging out with Helen and Ella walked up to her and said, “I can sing the letter factory song too.” First of all, I had no idea that she knew the song by heart, and second of all, I had no idea how competitive Ella was! Here is Ella singing the song yesterday at Taylors while we were waiting for the food.
What a beautiful Saturday
Sunday, July 27th, 2008We started out today walking to the Ferry Building with Becca and Tucker to meet AJ and Uncle Michael. After a great lunch at Taylors, we walked Uncle Michael back to his hotel (he was going back on the road) and took AJ home with us. We hung around the house, rested and eventually met up with Helen, Ron, Stella and Juliet. We took the huge bubble wand out to the Zen Garden and had a bubble festival. Later on, we went to dinner at Acme. It has been so great having AJ here. We will miss you! Ella is completely in love with AJ (who can blame her). It’s so sweet to watch Ella with AJ. She says things like, “I want to go play with YOU AJ” or “Where is AJ? Do you want to come with me?” It’s not coming out her as cute as it really is, but it’s so cute.
Ella in her new red fairy dress.
Mommy, Becca, Ella and Tucker walking down the Embarcadero.
Helping Tucker quench his thirst.
Ella and AJ resting after a long day of walking.
Bubble mavens!
Here are the sweetest buddies.
AJ teaching a class on bubble making.
Ella gave me her blankies and brought me a pillow when she saw that I was about to lay down.
Crazy Ella with her crazy outfit at Acme.
Beautiful Ella and AJ.
Such beautiful pure love.
AJ is visiting!
Saturday, July 26th, 2008AJ came to town today. We told Ella that AJ was coming last week and then reminded her last night (Thursday night). This morning when she woke up she said, “OK – I’m ready to go with you to pick up AJ from the airport”. I let her know that she wasn’t coming in for a few hours so we decided to take a little walk. Ella told us that she wanted to wear her ballet stuff to the airport so mommy helped Ella pick out a ballet outfit that she wore for the entire day. We picked up AJ at around 12:30 and Ella was so excited. She became very shy and quiet and it was so sweet. She snapped out of it after a few minutes. After Ella’s nap, mommy came home and then Stella, Juliet and Helen visited. They are so much fun together. Tonight, mommy, Ella, AJ and I went to dinner at Nama and then hung out at the house. Ella is in heaven having AJ here. We are so happy too.
Here is Ella reading a book in the Zen garden this morning.
Ella pushing her car on our walk.
Ella trying to figure out a way to climb this wall.
Having some fun in the hallway.
Dancing with AJ.
AJ trying to sneak her way into Ella’s tunnel.
Phonics
Friday, July 25th, 2008A couple of months ago, Stella and Juliet introduced Ella to a video called “The Letter Factory”. It teaches phonics. All of the girls love the video. Ella was checking out Stella and Juliet’s blog the other night and we came across a video of Stella singing the alphabet song the way they do it on The Letter Factory. This has inspired Ella to sing her phonics too! She is learning so much and can recognize almost all of her letters. Today, we were hanging out and Ella was playing with this Leap Frog phonics bus that she has. She was singing along with the bus and I caught it on video. There is a video at the end of this entry showing a little bit of her phonic enthusiasm.
Ella is totally cool about wearing pants under her sun dress. Now we have to work on a sweatshirt and normal shoes.
Ella has totally been into watercolors since Monday night. She gets so serious when she is painting.
HERE’S THE PHONICS VIDEO
Butterfly sun dress
Thursday, July 24th, 2008I have been hiding the sun dress that AJ gave Ella because I didn’t think that Ella would agree to wear a sweatshirt over the wings. Today was a pretty warm day so I decided to pull the dress out again. Ella was so happy. Ella had a terrific day – we went to music and then we had dinner at Acme. Here are some special shots from tonight.
Here is Ella telling me that she DID smile in the picture that I took before this one. It was too fake to even put in.
Flying outside of music class.
Here is Ella doing her favorite sport…hanging at Acme.
SFMOMA with mommy
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008Today mommy took Ella to the SFMOMA to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit. They took the bus and Ella was really excited. Ella wore a sweatshirt and a sun dress and sweatpants, and when they got to the museum, she took off her sweatshirt. Mommy said that they had a great time and you can tell from the pictures. Tonight the Kim/Arena clan came over for dinner. Mommy cooked a delicious dinner and after dinner Helen brought over water color paint and paper. All seven of us painted together. It was really sweet and fun. Ella was so into painting – she painted 3 pictures. She was incredibly focused. Tonight during Ella’s bath, she was kind of squirming around and I asked her if she needed to poop. She told me that she had to make a little poop so I took her out of the bath and put her on the toilet with her little Dora seat on top of the toilet seat. She made her first poop in the toilet tonight! Maybe the potty training thing won’t be so bad after all…we’ll see.
Here is Ella waiting for the bus – notice the sweatshirt.
Ella walking over the bridge at the museum. Notice the sweatshirt is gone.
This is a really cool photo.
Checking out a projection on the wall.
Here is Ella reading in the museum gift shop. She’s been really into the alphabet lately.
Checking out a huge projection of a fish tank on the wall.
Ella playing with her new birdie.
Here are some pictures from our watercolor party.
Our beautiful artists.
Sunday in a long sleeved leotard
Monday, July 21st, 2008It was a typical San Francisco summer day today weather wise – cold, gloomy, windy. It was definitely not sun dress weather. After breakfast, Ella told me that she wanted to wear a leotard, tights and a tutu. I seized the moment and took out a long sleeved leotard to see what she would do. She had no problem with it which was great because we were planning on taking her outside and we knew that it was going to be difficult to get her to put on a jacket or sweatshirt. I went to get a massage this afternoon and mommy and Becca took Ella for a walk to a new dog park by our house. Becca took Tucker and her sister Leslie’s dog Pogo. Ella played with the dogs, made some big bubbles with a wand that mommy bought and had a hot chocolate at Phil’s.
Dancing with ballerina Zoe.
Ella decided to put on all of her jewelry.
Mommy and Ella were fooling around after I left. Here is Ella with Gigi the cat on her head.
Here are Ella, Becca, Pogo and Tucker on the way to the dog park. Ella wanted to ride her bicycle today.
Check out the HUGE bubble that Ella made.
Looks like Becca is telling Ella a good secret.
Hot chocolate at Phil’s.
Sun dress compromise
Sunday, July 20th, 2008So we’re back in SF and it is much colder than it was in NY. The days get up to 68ยบ maybe. The first thing Ella says when she wakes up in the morning is, “I want to put on a sun dress”. We put on her right away. Then she says, “I can wear a sun dress only in the house”. We have worked it out so that she wears sweatpants or jeans or leggings with her sun dresses. She still won’t wear a sweatshirt or jacket but lets us bring one “just in case”. Today we took our regular Saturday walk to the Ferry Building and then had dinner at Moki’s tonight with Phyllis and my friend Amy from NY who now lives here. We had a great time.
Here is Ella’s sun dress compromise outfit. She seems fine with the pants.
On our way to the Ferry Building, we saw these happy face pinwheels. Ella stopped to touch each one.
After Ella touched every pinwheel and ran around she yelled, “I am happy”.
Here’s the gang at Moki’s enjoying Ella’s ice cream and each other.